Senior year and graduation stress kept me from writing much, but I am saying “Vira Bismillah” again.
My favorite recent sci-fi is, without doubt, Chappie. The idea of training robots the way I loved them as a kid was enough to make me watch without breathing. Spoiler-light summary:
There is a robot. Its owner does stuff to make it human-like. Once it is human-like it does human-like stuff, and the film ends. (Yes, I know how many times I just wrote “stuff.”)
Wall-to-wall action and sci-fi. Classic American cops become neighborhood kids who take bullets to the head, built by an Indian-origin engineer. Capitalism’s footsteps are audible. The film lightly needles the “we spend the money on peace, don’t ask too hard” answer Americans get when they ask where the budget went. Against the idea that a robot should only clean houses or fight in streets, Chappie, born from a creative sibling of robots, spends the whole runtime dismantling that thesis. *spoiler: it works.* What hit me most was how few locations and how simple the plot are. Versus brain-melting sci-fi across dozens of sets, Chappie carves “become a robot first, then you become human” into the brain with less scenery.
Seeing Die Antwoord in such an offbeat film did not surprise me. Ninja and Yolandi add color and show another singer-to-actor crossover.
Director Neil Blomkamp’s third feature keeps proving the District 9 maker belongs here.
Beyond sci-fi, Chappie quietly critiques the state’s war on crime, how ruthless militarism can be, how a determined mouse can pierce a wall, and the idea that difference threatens order.
I will stop writing; go watch the whole thing.
Takeaway:
We were not V for Vendetta, but we made plenty of statesmen too. (Signed: Chappie Robotoglu)
